The R32 trains, nicknamed the Brightliners for their shiny unpainted exteriors, were built to last 35 years. (Imagine that: Your lifespan stamped into metal, your death prefigured.) When they were finally retired from service in January, they had been riding the rails of New York City for no less than 58 years and were, by most accounts, the oldest operating subway cars in the world. That’s 23 unplanned years of hauling people across New York. A whole generation got to see those stainless-steel beauties creaking down the tunnel to the platform, with their crinkle-ridged exteriors and back-lit advertisements.
In a way, it was a small miracle that they lasted so long, an “anomaly,” as one mechanic told me. Except it wasn’t really. It took a lot of work from a lot of people, day after day, year after year.
I recently went to talk to some of those responsible for that work at the MTA maintenance facility in Corona, Queens. There are 13 of these massive workshops across the city, scattered from Coney Island to the banks of Westchester Creek in the Bronx. This one is in a remote pocket of the city, an area given over mostly to massive buildings and spaces: Citi Field, Flushing Meadows Park, the sprawling train yard. It’s like a hospital but an industrial one, scaled up to care for its multi-ton patients.
Standing around the break room with their arms crossed and ID badges dangling, heads full of train-talk, several maintenance workers took turns explaining the process: Railcars roll off the main tracks into a long rectangular building. The cars are lifted to eye level, inspected and repaired if needed. Most of them get to leave that day — back to work, like the rest of us. But some are moved over to a special track for trickier jobs.
We went for a walk along the service tracks in a big group, everyone chiming in, pointing to the parts that needed repairs or replacing: the truck, the brakes, the AC units. They told me the fleet is split into two camps, one called “legacy,” the other “millennial.” The former were built before 2000, the latter after. The millennial fleet is tougher to repair in some ways because there are more electronics in the cars. Maybe you’ve heard your grandfather complain about this, how engines are too damn complicated these days. Siu Ling Ko, a chief mechanical officer for the train cars, told me the shells may last 40 years. The electronics, though, not so much.
The legacy fleet has its own problems, of course, and is more prone to failures overall. Replacement parts are harder to find; the firms that made them — the Budd Company, Pullman-Standard and Westinghouse — are long gone. Many components are well past their design life, and mechanics have to pluck similar parts from retired vehicles or engineer substitutes. It’s a very ad-hoc, improvisational process that relies on the know-how that long-time employees build up over years.
But there’s a method to the madness, and a hard-earned one. Back in the 1980s, when the crumbling, graffiti-covered subway was the stuff of reactionary urban nightmares, MTA president David L. Gunn kicked off an ambitious overhaul of the system, including capital improvements, the famous graffiti removal program and more routine repairs. In 1990, this approach solidified as the scheduled maintenance system. Now, every two to three months, more than 7,000 railcars are taken in for inspection with the goal of catching problems before they happen.
Excellent article and resource. Thanks for sharing.
Running a railway (and that is what SkyTrain is in the end) takes a lot of money, A proper maintenance program must be established, but unfortunately;y politicians do nor recognize this and starve the railway of the funding need to keep the railway operational and in good repair. When our MALM system costs around 60% more to operate than other railways, most of that cost is due to maintenance.
Not once, in my over 40 years advocating for affordable transit has the issue of maintenance ever come up in public debate and most politicians just prefer to remain ignorant of the costs.
That lack of concern about maintenance and its inherent costs with the political class is why they don’t understand LRT vs. Skytrain debate. The political class see’s what they think is a high tech propulsion system like Skytrain’s LIM propulsion units, but then are totally bowled over by the fact that the basic design of LIM propulsion and where it must be located in relation to the train’s wheels, makes maintenance very costly and very, very time consuming, even if your just inspecting it. Which must be done under federal law. Whereas a simple electric “can motor” hangs on the side of the wheelsets of most railway vehicle designs and is super easy to access, inspect, monitor and if necessary, change. This is just one issue with the Skytrain vs. LRT.
Translink does maintenance. They made a big order to replace all the original skytrains from 1980’s. They are 35 years old. That is not too bad. Many stations on expo line are being refurbished. Track maintenance happens often. Just look at their financial statement.
The British Columbia Rapid Transit Company Ltd. (BCRTC), on behalf of TransLink, maintains and operates two of the three SkyTrain lines in Metro Vancouver —the Expo and Millennium Lines as well as the West Coast Express (WCE)commuter rail service. In addition, BCRTC manages TransLink’s agreement with InTransit BC for the operation and maintenance of the Canada Line.
They budget $184 million and spent $176 million for operations and maintenance.
CBC news have an article about the ottawa lrt extension that is costing almost $5 billion and is late. All those cut and cover tunnels is expensive.
https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/quarterly_reports/2022/2022_q2_finance_and_performance_report.pdf
Zwei replies: CBC’s reporting on Ottawa’s hybrid LRT/light metro is suspect and up to their usual poor standards. I would suspect Mr. cow would have more to say on this subject.
Translinks revenue for 6 months ending 30 June 2022 is $1,090,681,000, Expenses 976,456,000. Surplus is $114,225,000
Zwei replies: Before or after subsidies?
I would like to remind Meet, that in 1992, the Expo Line was subsidized over $157 million annually In today’s money, that would be $285 million.
I have been in the transit industry for longer than I care to admit. There is no, none, zero, nada, nyet, transit agency in the world that can run without some level of subsidies. Even if certain rapid transit lines or groups of lines make small amounts of profit (this includes their operating subdies), their surface fleets loose massive amounts of cash. Even, Hong Kong’s famous metro system, the MTR, which uses development rights and rental fees over their tracks, so developers can build buildings, so they can partially fund the operation of their metro network and construction of new lines, stil usin, this approach, requires the MTR to get almost half of its operational and about 60% of their capital funding from the government of Hong Kong.
Here it’s the same with roads, unless there are major government tax subsidizes and building programs, there’s no profit. When was the last time Greyhound Bus built its own roads or highways between cities? If roads were profitable at all, there wouldn’t be an infrastructure deficit, in just about every western country.
How many profitable airlines run their own international airport and air traffic control system in multiple cities? They all require the public purse to do the heavy financial lifting.
Just like freight railways (especially if their are passenger railway lines involved), they are all subsidized by the government at some level.
Don’t get me started about the huge maintenance costs of the Skytrain system vs. just about any other rail based technology in existence.
Ottawa’s problem comes from the fact that all federal infrastructure money requires a P3 structure (Public Private Partnership), thanks, Prime Minister Harper. This structure allows public infrastructure to be privately run by still technically publicly owned. Unless you already had a city run rail operation, most new rail transit cities don’t want their new rail lines on their books, the personnel costs and depreciating asset values count as budget debt on the tax rolls. This way local politicians can claim, “there debt free” and fool their more financially conservative voters. Therefore, you have a private company or in this case, a consortium (a group of companies), to run your railway for you and accept your financial risk (debt on the tax rolls) for a yearly fee. Many cities worldwide are doing this in many municipal operations to lower debt responsibilities.
The winning consortium the Rideau Transit Group tried to turn maintenance into a profit making operation. Simply because many of the companies involved in the Consortium, RTG and it’s maintenance wing RTM (Rideau Transit Maintenance) have no intention to stay for the entire 30 year length of operating contract (2019-2049). In fact, expect them to bail out as early as 2028. So they are maximizing their profit now, screw the actual operations of the Confederation Line (Line 1 & #3), they don’t care. It’s always about quick profit, as much and as soon as they can get it. That’s the problem of relying on private companies for operations in rapid transit lines. If they aren’t actual railway operating companies that understand railway economics and want to be around long-term. SNC Lavlin was at the least honest about their true feelings, after winning the finance, design, operating and maintenance contract contract for Ottawa’s Trillium Line (Line #2 and #4), when they said they will never do another P3 contract process again, it’s too long-term and cumbersome for too small a profit.
Then there is the issue of deferred maintenance, which TransLink is famous for.
I think you have made the wrong interpretations of TransLink’s numbers, because they do not concur with reality.
I would think that the new cars have nothing to do with maintenance. The stations are being refurbished to accept 5 car trains. Also Translink does not include the cost of the attendants on their SkyTrain balance sheet, which thus gives fudge figures. In 1992, the GVRD did a forensic study of transit in the lower mainland and found that the Expo line was subsidized at over $147 million annually, something the government of the day pretended not to be true.
This leads to the basic question, if MAlM IS SO GOOD, WHY DOES EVERYONE AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE?
Years ago, a chap from Siemens told me that the Expo line was about 3 times more expensive to operate than light rail. I think you have to go back to your abacus and do a forensic audit of TransLink’s numbers.
It has always amazes me how the media get the issue of transit subsidies so wrong.
There are still reporters who claim that the Canada line is subsidy free, yet TransLink pays the operating consortium over $100 million annually in operating fees. What has happened is that the real cost of the Canada Line is spread out over a 35 year period and when the P-3 concession ends, the taxpayer will be stuck with the costs of the mid life rehab and more.
Mr Zwei, you continue to mis-represent the now-3-decades-old study for the GVRD that estimated a ‘subsidy’ of the Expo Line.
It was not a “forensic” review (e.g., by an accountant). It was a study applying a very particular methodology developed by a young Todd Littman for his masters thesis. It did not report a ‘subsidy’ in the sense you imply here, that is, a $$$ transfer from government to Translink/Skytrain to cover operating expenses. I believe Littman’s ‘subsidy’ calculation folded together the Expo Line capital costs (without providing a time frame) with its operating costs. “Subsidy” was thus used in a very unconventional way. This is likely why, in their comments published with the report, official reviewers disassociated themselves from the report.
In any case, the original Expo Line construction debt has presumably been paid off. So there is nothing in “reality”, there is only Mr. Zwei’s imagination to suggest that such an annual subsidy has continued through the past three decades to today.
As Mr. Meet notes above, Translink financial reports (which are audited) for the first half of 2022 outline its ACTUAL revenues and expenditures. I have rounded the numbers below into $ millions from p.6 of https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/quarterly_reports/2022/2022_q2_finance_and_performance_report.pdf:
Revenues:
Taxes 478, Transit fares 254, Gov transfers 291, Amortization 12, Dev cost charges 16, Interest 31, Misc 9 for an operating total of $1,090 million.
So yes, Mr. Zwei, Mr. Meet’s “surplus” is AFTER subsidies.
All public transit systems require large cash subsidies (though such ‘subsidy’ numbers would be greatly reduced if full cost accounting was applied, e.g., including environmental and social benefits). The above revenue number for ‘Gov transfers’ includes $176 in (Covid) “Relief funding” this year from the Feds. The ‘Taxation’ number (gas, parking, Hydro levy etc.) is another form of cash ‘subsidy’, and ‘Dev cost charges’ might also be included. ‘Transit’ (fares) only covered about 1/4 of total costs. This revenue is reduced due to Covid, but I doubt its share of total revenues is unusual.
Turning to the expenses:
Bus division 421, Rail 177, Police 24, Corporate 56, Roads/bridges 40, Amortization [Cda Line] 117, Int 90, for an Operating total of $925 million.
The 177 for Rail is for the Expo/Millennium Lines and WCE. The true costs of the Canada Line are hidden from the public by the PPP agreement, but contrary to what Mr. Zwei suggests, the 117 for the Canada Line is not an operating subsidy, it is better represented as a (deferred) payment by the Provincial Government for its share of the original construction costs. We’d all like to know how much more the interest rate here is than for Government borrowing, but such amount is a subsidy of the private consortium partners, not Canada Line operations.
From p. 17 of the above report, on expenses for Rail Operations (Expo/Millennium Lines, WCE, plus managing the Canada Line agreement; numbers below are rounded $ million):
Admin 4, Contracted services 67, Fuel and power 8, Insurance 3, Maintenance, materials and utilities 28, Prof &legal 1, Rent/leases 1, Salaries, wages and benefits 65, for an Operating total of $177 million.
Mr Cow, please DO “get started” on Skytrain maintenance costs. Presumably maintenance salaries are under Salary above rather than Maintenance. So, is an employee salary share of total rail division operating costs of 65/177 out of line for rail systems? BCRTC no longer boasts they run an operating surplus, but what is the evidence that the share of total employee costs is very different than for other rail systems? Numbers please!
Mr Zwei, you have NO basis for your claim that Skytrain attendants are excluded from the Skytrain “balance sheet” – please stop making this false claim.
Or prove me wrong! My own quick search did not locate a breakdown by Skytrain employee type, but no auditor would allow such unionized employee costs to be excluded from audited statements. Transit police, however, are reported separately from the divisions for rail, bus and Corporate.
Everyone knows Skytrain is very expensive to build. There is no need to exaggerate its costs, operating or capital.
Zwei Replies: A surplus after subsidies is not really a surplus at all. Translink’s fancy bookkeeping does not sit well with others. SkyTrain’s attendants are just factored in another column and not released with the operational costs. Just the attendants mind, not the staff doing maintenance and in the operations centre.
As there is no independent audit of TransLink, they can claim almost anything they want. I know that in Europe, their are government agencies who independently audit transit systems to ensure they are not fudging the books for higher subsidies. No such audits are done in BC.
Actually from memory, the Expo Line’s original debt has not been paid off as I believe it was over 50 years or the lifespan of the line. In fact it was the late Des Turner who compelled the social Credit government to release the debt payment plan.
What is so sad, is that no one, except for locals, actually believes TransLink and they are quietly ignored.
Mr Zwei, we would all like greater transparency/detail from Translink, notably regarding rail operations, but contrary to your claims Translink financial reports ARE independently audited (though the annual report rather than the mid-year report I quoted above).
The 2021 annual report (see p. 16 of https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/quarterly_reports/2021/2021-year-end-financial-and-performance-report.pdf) includes this statement from independent auditor KPMG):
“We have audited the consolidated financial statements of the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority (the “Authority”)…
…In our opinion, the accompanying financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of the Authority as at December 31, 2021, and its consolidated results of operations, its consolidated changes in net debt and its consolidated cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with Canadian public sector accounting standards.
Basis for Opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with Canadian generally accepted auditing standards. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the “Auditors’ Responsibilities for the Audit of the Financial Statements” section of our auditors’ report.
We are independent of the Authority in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in Canada and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements.
We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.”
Mr Zwei, please show where “Skytrain attendants are just factored in another column and not released with the operational costs.”
If you can’t, you should retract this silly claim.
Zwei replies: Because TransLink was in partnership with Bombardier to sell SkyTrain abroad, every effort was made to conceal the real cost of the light metro. Thus many items were placed in other categories to make the spread sheet look good.
I have been told a lot about the fiscal shenanigans about TransLink and their reports from politicians (Oh yes a few to communicate with me) retired bureaucrats and managers and from professionals in the industry and it does not leave a pretty picture.
You just have to ask yourself this, why after over 40 years on the market, only seven such proprietary railways have sold?
Why has the proprietary railway has been renamed six times (ICTS, ALRT, ALM, ARt, Innovia, MALM)?
Why are two of the ART systems involved with bribery scandals?
Why will the American government not subsidized the railway?
The list goes on.
For me the ALRT/ART/MALM railway is a museum piece, like the Schwebbebahn in Germany, designed and built to solve transportation mills of the day. Sadly, the electric tram made both expensive oddities.
Until there is a full independent audit of TransLink by an outside source (such a thought makes the bureaucrat at Translink tremble), the public will not be able to make unbiased decisions for regional transit.